As a glass ceramic composition of interest to the present invention, a composition has been disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 5-217426 (Patent Document 1). Patent Document 1 has disclosed a non-reducing dielectric glass ceramic composition in which Li2O—RO—B2O3—SiO2-based glass (R indicates at least one of Ba, Ca, and Sr) is added to a (Ca, Sr) (Zr, Ti)O3—MnO—SiO2-based ceramic used as a primary component.
According to this glass ceramic composition, firing can be performed at a temperature of 1,000° C. or less, and as the result of the firing, a glass ceramic sintered body having a high relative dielectric constant, stable dielectric constant temperature properties, and a high Q value can be obtained. Consequently, when the glass ceramic composition disclosed in Patent Document 1 is used, a metal, such as gold, silver, or copper, having a high electrical conductivity can be used for a conductive pattern which is formed inside, and the loss caused by resistance of a conductive material is small in a high frequency region; hence, when the above glass ceramic composition is used for a multilayer ceramic electronic component forming, for example, a resonator, a filter, or a capacitor, superior high frequency properties can be realized.
Although the glass ceramic composition disclosed in Patent Document 1 has superior properties as described above, there is still some room for improvement. In particular, a Qf of approximately 5,000 GHz is the limit as the Q value.